Studio, Portrait, Still Life, Lighting Equipment and TechniqueContinuous and Strobe Lighting. (The Sun is considered continuous!) Great ideas are really ten a penny! Technique in setting up the subject is, of course, essential. However, the ability to bring out form, texture, tonality and color is where the skill in lighting provides all the keys to engraving one's ideas on the delivered picture.

I've not seen a forum yet that dedicates an entire section of the forum for pet portraiture. Living in the south, I know many people (myself included) that would love to have some nice shots of their pets. I have the dickens of a time even getting my own to sit still long enough under the right circumstances to get any good shots off.

It would be great to have a venue to share images and hear ideas on how to improve on this particular venue of imagery.

Anyway, I do have a shot to share where I submitted my dog to this hokey contest. I normally don't do these things, but $1000 could buy a nice lens or two, so....feel free to view and vote here:

I've not seen a forum yet that dedicates an entire section of the forum for pet portraiture. Living in the south, I know many people (myself included) that would love to have some nice shots of their pets. I have the dickens of a time even getting my own to sit still long enough under the right circumstances to get any good shots off.

It would be great to have a venue to share images and hear ideas on how to improve on this particular venue of imagery.

Anyway, I do have a shot to share where I submitted my dog to this hokey contest. I normally don't do these things, but $1000 could buy a nice lens or two, so....feel free to view and vote here:

We'd welcome pet portraits as long as it was indeed a serious and professional endeavor. Posting pictures of one's pet, merely to show those lovely whiskers is fine for Layback Cafe, and can be fun. However, a separate pet section, like the current and wonderful Macro section needs to be set up to reflect professional techniques and process required to get the best images for print and sale, rather than for showing off lenses.

If we can gather enough serious support this would be excellent. Let's see what people can show as serious portraits with commercial or aesthetic value and we'll look to starting a dedicated forum. This would include horses and other animals!

That's a great idea - I guess my question though is: In the interim, where should such postings and discussions take place? For example, I would like to hear what others do to capture the right "look" on animals and what methods they take to control their composition? Dogs and pets are one thing, as they are small enough to usually fit into a studio environment, but try getting a horse into a studio could be challenging (and dirty!). Do people use portable backdrops? How do you control lighting on locatoin? Strobes? How would you "pose" or set up shots where, like in nature, many factors are literally beyond your control?

The reason why I ask is because there really does seem to be a dearth of professionals in the area that would be able to offer such services, and this may be a niche worth looking into. I simply don't have the experience in on-site work, and strobes and such to make any intelligent determination of how to proceed.

That's a great idea - I guess my question though is: In the interim, where should such postings and discussions take place? For example, I would like to hear what others do to capture the right "look" on animals and what methods they take to control their composition? Dogs and pets are one thing, as they are small enough to usually fit into a studio environment, but try getting a horse into a studio could be challenging (and dirty!). Do people use portable backdrops? How do you control lighting on locatoin? Strobes? How would you "pose" or set up shots where, like in nature, many factors are literally beyond your control?

The reason why I ask is because there really does seem to be a dearth of professionals in the area that would be able to offer such services, and this may be a niche worth looking into. I simply don't have the experience in on-site work, and strobes and such to make any intelligent determination of how to proceed.

Jason,

What camera are you using? What kind of work or experience do you have. IOW, what is the base plate from which your are working?

Do you actually photograph pets right now? There are, I'm sure others here with experience for this area.

Actually I think there's a problem already here with far too many forums. If you split everything up into too many little forums you don't have a community.

For example the "Lighting" forum over at dpr is the hangout for all the studio photographers. Sometimes we shoot on location, sometimes in our studios, sometimes with strobes, sometimes with the sun and our reflectors. Sometimes it's models, glamour, sometimes babies or families.

The point is we meet in the one place. Here there are seperate forums for "Portrait", "Fashion / Glamour" , "Self-Portrait" and "Wedding".

With the low traffic here these subdivisions will be the death-knell I assure you.

I suggest you urgently consolidate all those forums into one "People Photography" or "Lighting" or "Studio" forum.

I say this with the best interests of the forum at heart. I don't have the time or energy to decide if my model shoot photos are "Portrait" or "Glamour" and I don't want to have to keep checking a stack of forums to see if there's anything interesting to read or if I can help anyone.

Remember the basics of studio work, start with one light and only add more lights when they are definately needed.

All these forums is akin to entering a new studio and plugging in ten strobes. How can you take a meter reading with all that going on.

Better to have fewer forums and add to them than this IMHO. It kills the sense of community.